A common question on the newsgroups is ''how do you encrypt data in a .NET [or other] client application and then decrypt it on SQL Server [or vice versa]?'' I actually ran down my list of answers to someone who asked this in the newsgroups a few weeks ago. I won’t get into the details, but the answers all pretty much say the same thing -- ...

The encryption features in SQL Server 2005 and 2008 provide the ability to create asymmetric encryption key pairs (RSA public/private key pairs) using the T-SQL CREATE ASYMMETRIC KEY statement. One feature that was left out, however, is the ability to backup and restore asymmetric key pairs generated on the server. Once an asymmetric key pair has ...